A decade


On the weekend before Footloose, I passed a rather significant milestone: 10 years of working at the Library of Doom and its successor, the Shiny New Learning Centre.  In that time, I have held four different positions, starting as a library assistant before moving up to senior library assistant in charge of inter-library loans (later taking on responsibility for electronic forms of document delivery as well).  For a few months, I was seconded into an assistant librarian role, looking after a team of people with responsibility for front-line services, and for the last year and a bit I have been in charge of cataloguing.

Even with four different roles, it seems rather strange that I’ve been there for ten years.  Rather a long time, and nearly a third of my life thus far.  I have colleagues who have been there far longer than I, and are probably there for life.  I don’t see myself working in the same place for life, but who knows?  Maybe a decade is long enough to be thoroughly immovable.

Over these years, I have accumulated many memories.  Of lovely co-workers and silly students, of political disputes and lovely students, of excitements and disappointments, of vibrations and fire alarms.  There was September 11th 2001, which I will never forget (and which I will, one day, blog about).  There was the strangeness of S Club Library.  There was the flood in the foyer which was the first time the place got called the Library of Doom, and the time a shelf tried to kill me.  There was the day we all dressed as characters from books, and there was the summer we spent moving books around in the shiny new building.  My fellow workers have become something of a fan club (even waiting outside the dressing room door and screaming when I emerged after Rodgers With an H). There have been many frustrations, but also many joys.  I have no idea what the next ten years will hold in career terms, but I don’t regret the last ten at the (former) Library of Doom.

2010
09/27
CATEGORY
Library
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Finding my feet again


Having reached a place of despondency with Footloose, things managed to get worse before they got better.  Part of my attack of the glums was probably caused by general feelings of physical exhaustion, as the mildly stuffy nose turned into an uncomfortable sore throat and a somewhat more than mildly stuffy nose.  In order to ensure that breathing was at optimum level for singing, I became quickly identifiable (and quite popular) backstage due to the smell of Olbas Oil.  Several others had been ill in the lead-up to the show, and I believe a good proportion of the cast is now feeling the effects as well.

On the Friday night, I experienced one of my most terrifying moments on stage.  A few lines in to my solo, “Heaven Help Me”, my mouth continued moving, but not a sound came out.  So I sang ‘Someone’s got to … … … … If I don’t who will?’, which made very little sense (for the record, someone’s got to take the high road).  It was only a brief moment of nothingness, but it was truly terrifying.  My mind raced with the horrifying possibilities – what if my voice had run away and I had to continue mouthing the entire song?  Was there any way someone could rescue me, even though I was alone on the stage?  Thankfully, a deep breath at the end of the missing line, and things return to normal.  I still wanted the earth to open up and swallow me, but had to change from ‘at home’ to ‘at church’ costume ready for the final scene of the act.  I don’t know whether it was the nose and throat, some sort of mental affliction or just random fate which conspired to create those few seconds of personal horror, but it certainly galvanised me for the second act – I had to just pretend that act one had not happened and get out there and be the best darned Reverend Moore I could be.  Apparently, I found out later, it looked like a problem with my mic rather than with me, though that seems rather unfair to the hardworking sound man.

After the Friday night show, I opted to walk home, giving me a chance to experience some quiet, some fresh air and a chance to have a good long talk with God.  I expressed my frustrations and anxieties about the role, I told him about the feelings from life in general that had got tangled up with Footloose, and I tried to listen to Him in response (something I am so very bad at doing).

On Saturday, I was still feeling ill, but I was feeling calmer than I had felt all week.  And I started to enjoy the show.  I had enjoyed spending time with my fellow cast members and there was much entertaining people-watching to do, but it wasn’t until Saturday that I felt able to let go and enjoy the experience of performing the role rather than fretting and being neurotic about it.  It was still hard work – Shaw Moore is a very challenging part – but it became considerably more enjoyable than I had made it earlier in the run.  Whether you choose to put this down to God’s influence or to something else, this was most definitely a good thing.  It would have been a terrible shame to have been given such a great opportunity to truly act and then not enjoy it at all.

After the show on Saturday, quite a number of people I had never met came up to me and congratulated me on my performance as Reverend Moore, saying that they found it very moving.  This was very encouraging, and made me want to cry in a very good way.  I still feel I could have done better, but can’t we always do better?  However, I definitely found my feet and am sure I am stronger because of the experience.

2010
09/15
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Musicals
Ramblings
Theatre
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Feeling Footlost


We’re two performances in to our five show run of Footloose, which means each set of main parts among the young performers has had their first night, and I have experienced the show once through with each daughter and each antagonist.   And I am feeling lost, footlost.  Last year, my character in Fame was quite adamant that “acting is the hardest profession in the world”, and I think he had a point (but then, so did the characters who claimed music and dance to be the hardest professions in the world, as neither discipline makes any sense to me).  Not just from the point of view of how difficult or technical the craft of acting might be, but from the emotional perspective.  There are the ups and downs of your character’s journey, which get mixed in with the ups and downs of backstage life and your own independent emotions.  For me, there is the desire to perform the part of well as it can be performed, and there is the crushing disappointment and self-directed anger when you know you didn’t do a scene as well as it should have or could have been done.

My young castmates are having an absolute ball doing this show, and I’m very pleased for them.  The feelings I have, however, remind me of how I felt when I did Me and My Girl (so long ago now that I hadn’t even started this blog), which was the first time since my school days that I had performed a principal role.  I felt absolutely awful, like I was letting the show and myself down.  I was unable to enjoy the experience, and all I wanted to do after the show was go home and curl up in a ball on my bed.  Feelings of inadequacy for parts have driven me to tears in the past.  Last night, I felt that I had really let Ren down in our scene together and I am aware that there is still a nebulous ‘something’ missing, a ‘something’ which I suspect will turn out to be the key to the character.  Looking back at my feelings from previous shows tells me that I probably shouldn’t pay too much attention to this – if there is a problem in general, or if some things didn’t work last night, then I have to trust the directors to tell me.  After all, I can’t actually see my performance.  They can.

I want to enjoy the show, I really do.  But to be honest, I’m not.  I’ve had people tell me that my performance is really good, but we’re back to that old, dangerous thing of thinking “well, you’re my friend, of course you’re going to think that.”  I’m not going to get another chance to play a part like this for some time, if ever, so I should be enjoying it for all it’s worth.  But frustration, a slightly blocked nose (which can be heard in whistly breathing through the mic from time to time) and an exciting selection of self-doubts have so far stopped me from doing so.  I know I can do better, and I will try to do so.  But instead of feeling overwhelmed and footlost, I need to feel…  I don’t know.  Something else.  Something better.  Something healthier.  The show is a good show.  The production is a good production.  There are only 2 days left to enjoy it, so I really ought to take that opportunity.

2010
09/10
CATEGORY
Ramblings
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Cutting loose?


Tonight we gotta cut loose, footloose!
Kick off your Sunday shoes. 

It’s that time again – show week!  It seems like I only just got off that particular emotional roller-coaster, largely because All Shook Up was only last month.  Now I’m on to Footloose, with the young people of Phoenix Performing Arts (the group where I am brought in from time to time as an “adult”).  In some ways there are many similarities between the shows: in both of them, an authority figure has sucked the joy out of a town; in both of them, a young man arrives and shakes things up; in both of them, I play(ed) the father of the female lead; in both of them, I walk(ed) out part of the way through an emotional song being sung to me.    But in more fundamental ways, they are completely different.  All Shook Up was a comedy, whereas Footloose is a drama with some funny bits.  When I saw a production of the show last year (by Lights Up Productions, before I was involved with the group), I was surprised by how much genuine drama there is in the show, with some complex relationships and some quite serious themes.  Now, having been rehearsing for the last three months, I am still coming across new layers to my character and trying to work out how to make these come through.

I play Reverend Shaw Moore, who essentially runs the town of Bomont.  Everyone there does what he says and follows his guidance.  As Rusty, Urleen and Wendy-Jo explain to Ren, “Reverend Moore? He is the power.  He is the law.”  His leadership has resulted in the town having a curfew for all young people, and bans in place on alcohol, drugs and (more surprisingly) dancing.  Due to these rules and his rather strained relationships with his wife and daughter, he functions as the antagonist to the young leads through the show, blocking their hopes and plans at every turn.  Yet, he is not a bad man.  He is motivated by a genuine desire to protect the young people of the town, to care for and guide his daughter and to do God’s will.  Unfortunately, his judgement has been clouded by an event in the past, an event that casts a shadow over the entire town due to his reaction to it.  He is a persuasive man and a frightening man.  He is a caring man, but an unseeing man.  He is a good man who cannot see that his actions are causing harm.  He cares deeply, but doesn’t express it as he should.  He buries his pain, but he also treasures it in a way.  All of these things need to come through in my performance somehow – so no pressure…

Actually, an awful lot of pressure.  Performing with PPA always brings with it a sense of responsibility.  I am there as an “adult” so I feel I need to be some sort of role model in the way I behave backstage and in rehearsals, in addition to fulfilling the demands of the role and giving the younger cast members an older person to bounce off.  In this role, I know that the way I perform will inform the performances of Ren, Ariel and Vi at the very least – I have to give them everything they need for their characters.  I have a series of scenes towards the end which are wonderfully written, but which scare me immensely – they have to be so, so right to make the show’s conclusion work.  I’m probably not making things any easier for myself when in the back of my mind, I am always aware that one of my last conversations with Stuart before he died was about how much he thought this role would be a good one for me.  And in my heart of hearts, I know that he could have performed it better than I ever will.

As ever with PPA, rehearsals have their strange moments.  The Rens (most of the non-adult roles are double cast, meaning that I have two very different daughters and two very different antagonists) being told that entering a room was like being thrown into a shark pool, with me as the biggest shark.  Running around the acting coach’s garden and delivering a speech breathlessly to see what happened (answer, I couldn’t get to the end as I am clearly less fit than I thought).  Discussing what our characters would wear in bed.  My daughters comforting me as if they were a lioness or a domestic cat, to see the difference.  Rehearsals are, as I have mentioned before, odd.

It is a great privilege to play this role.  It’s extremely scary as well.  There are emotions in it that I don’t want to touch on, but really have to.  The character continues to elude me, and show me more sides of himself which I doubt I can portray.  I have vocal issues in the dialogue which have been pointed out numerous times, but which seem to be getting better only slowly.  But the script is wonderful, and I am sure the show will be a great experience once I manage to cut loose (though not footloose, given Shaw’s antipathy to dance) and just go with it.

2010
09/06
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Musicals
Theatre
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What does a librarian actually do all day?


It is quite clear that librarianship is one of the most misunderstood professions out there.  People really have no idea what librarians spend their time doing, why they might want to do it or even what the point of librarians is.  Our image has been improved in recent decades thanks to characters such as the Discworld’s Librarian and Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Rupert Giles, but still the overriding image is of a severe-looking lady with her hair in a bun, grumpily stamping books and telling people to be quiet.  Not always accurate – if nothing else, I’m no lady!

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2010
08/28
CATEGORY
Library
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A week in the Tower – Day 6


So after two months of living and breathing All Shook Up, it finally had to end.  One last journey to the Tower Theatre, and two last shows.  One last day with Lights Up Productions and the several dozen people whose work made the show happen in so many ways.  It had been a hard couple of months, in terms of the number of hours of rehearsing and in terms of emotional stresses both connected to the show and otherwise.  I had tried hard to keep my personal life outside of my show life, and hopefully succeeded (on Day 2, though, being in the theatre made me miss Stuart immensely and I needed a good cry, but I saved it until the lunch break).  Dance routines had driven me literally to the point of tears when trying to get them right at home.  The tight jeans had almost given me nightmares.  One of the scenes did literally give me some very disturbing dreams.  But I had met, and re-met, some amazing, talented, dedicated people and we’d put together a show we enjoyed and which we were proud of.  Now it had to end.

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2010
08/15
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Musicals
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A week in the Tower – Day 5


Day 5 could have gone better for me.  An awful lot better.  During the afternoon, I read over my notes from the various run-throughs and performances over the last 10 days, and sang through ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ numerous times, as I know that’s the number I find most challenging vocally.  It stays very low and my character is supposed to be nervous while singing it, a combination which can mean that I descend into incomprehensibility if I don’t concentrate.

Notes were at five o’clock, preceded for unknown reasons by a game of catch that soon became violent.  Much laughter was shared by the company, and I proved that I have no sense of aim whatsoever.  I know people who hate notes during a run, but the whole point of them is to make sure that the show gets better and better, as there’s always room for improvement.  They can also be encouraging – if someone does something particularly good, that will be picked up on and praised.  As long as everyone involved knows that the purpose is notes is for good and not for ill, then all is well – I certainly have had many notes over the years which improved my performance, generally suggesting things I’d never have thought of myself or catching errors or problems I hadn’t noticed.

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2010
08/14
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Musicals
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A week in the Tower – Day 4


Day 4 in Folkestone’s Tower Theatre began a little late, as traffic was seriously snarled up around Canterbury.  But once we were all gathered, we began with notes – what went wrong and what went right on All Shook Up‘s opening night.  There were many positives, and also several scenes that needed attention, largely the complicated scenes at the end of each act.  So we sorted out our props and costumes in leisurely fashion while each of these scenes was worked on the stage, sometimes with the intention of increasing the pace, sometimes to make the story clearer and once, for me, because I wasn’t milking a joke enough.  We spent some time rehearsing some gasps of astonishment and also ran the curtain call several more times as we’d experienced some traffic problems with this on the opening night.

Unlike the previous day, backstage talk was varied and unpredictable.  The bat had figured prominently in conversations leading up to the opening night, but since it hadn’t made an appearance, we mostly assumed it had moved on elsewhere.  A second bat-free night seems to have confirmed this theory.  This takes away a level of unpredictability and excitement from the experience, but it does make it more likely that the audience will pay attention to us rather than to the wildlife.

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2010
08/13
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A week in the Tower – Day 3


So, opening night.  The moment of truth.  That was the end point of Day 3.  First, though, we had a day in the Tower to get through.  Starting once again at the top of the show, we ran through in costume, stopping to deal with technical issues (mostly scene changes, tightening up the choreography of the arrival and departure of the tables, chairs, statues and so on) and to fix some scenes that hadn’t been working as well as they should.  Sadly, we didn’t have time to work on my insanely quick costume change, but we did stop to work on a moment which had been causing significant anxiety for a while – a kiss between myself and another character.  It had been stressing both of us out, but the moment was reblocked to make more sense in context.  A weight off everyone’s mind, I think.

After our lunch break, which happened a few scenes into our work, the cast sorted out the curtain call in the theatre foyer while the crew finished off some more tasks on stage – getting some scenery items up into the flies, fixing flats and so on.  Throughout the day, they were busy with finishing touches on paint jobs and securing the last few props we needed.  Hard-working doesn’t even begin to describe the crew and technical team for this show!

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2010
08/12
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A week in the Tower – Day 2


Day 2 in the Tower was both encouraging and dispiriting.  We have a great show on our hands.  But I have a *lot* of work still to do, with less than 24 hours before the opening (sold out!) performance begins.

Most of the day was spent staggering through the show, working largely on set changes and on spacing in some of the dance routines that hadn’t been covered the previous day.  During act one, the set changes come thick and fast, requiring each and every member of both cast and crew to have their heads well and truly screwed on.  Careful choreography was required for getting our various props and set pieces on and off in time and each change was rehearsed over and over again.  My main responsibilities in terms of set changes have turned out to be some oil drums and a round table, but I also get to spend some quality time with a bar stool, a bus stop sign and a statue of the goddess Venus.

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2010
08/10
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